6:30-7:30 pm: Performance from Downtown Art Walk to Resonator

8:00 pm: Show starts at Resonator

B. Ajay Sharma is Resonator’s visiting artist for October art walk. Part performance, part installation Sharma will lead a procession from downtown Main Street waving a flag: a symbol for the pressures of our times.

Inside Resonator the show starts at 8:00 p.m. Patrons will encounter symbols that examine global power structures in a short film entitled “Motherland and Other Stories.”

For those who would like to watch it prior to art walk:

https://vimeo.com/218748188

Of the project Sharma says:

“...I use these allegoric images to understand the displacement of people from different states and neighboring countries; Tibet, Nepal, Iran, Russia, and Bangladesh. Even within India, displacement happens due to in search of job, surviving life, religion, cast, race and skin.

In India, religion and populism are being used by the right wing to create a utopian ideal of one national identity in the name of patriotism. The idea of one nation, race, and religion is reinforced with different actions; storytelling and the way people dress to confirm identity. My first idea of working on this performance is where i collaborate with children and make stories of their favorite objects and use alternative photography cyanotype prints to tell the story of their experience.

I then took a wider perspective to collaborate with others, extend the idea of performance, intervention, and develop different imagery representing the utopian idea of motherland, politics, and displacement. This perspective means I can play with the performative individual experience, and the notion of different ideas and imagery of time."

"Residue of Perfomative Acts" is Sharma's installation that features prints on display and art objects suspended in the air. Of the project Sharma says:

"Residue of Performative Acts" questions how patriotism can emerge from a place and time. The audience is invited to decode all images presented throughout the installation using their own experiences as a guide. Their reaction may lead them to contemplate future human crises based on the symbols and emotions they experience during the exhibition. "